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Legal hitch delays Marimba protocol

Marimba?s attempt to set a standard to reduce Web congestion hit its first hurdle when Novadigm filed suit against it, alleging infringement of intellectual property rights.

Push technology vendor Marimba submitted its distribution and replication protocol (DRP) to the internet standards body, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) on 27 August. It was backed by Netscape, Novell, Sun and others, but not Microsoft.

But Novadigm ? whose automated software distribution market is under attack from Marimba?s Castanet push technology ? claimed some elements of the standard infringe on Novadigm patents, which are already the subject of a patent lawsuit against Marimba.

Novadigm CEO Albion Fitzgerald said: ?Marimba?s sudden magnanimous decision to abandon its own patent process and donate the technology to open standards should be seen in the light of our patent, and the ongoing litigation, as an exploitative action. We own this technology and we?re going to vigorously defend it.?

The company has asked W3C to defer consideration of DRP until the patent lawsuit is resolved.

Novadigm said it would notify Netscape and other companies involved in the W3C submission. Fitzgerald claimed that Marimba had not told the W3C of the outstanding patent suit or it had told only one side of the story.

Dave Cope, Marimba VP of marketing, claimed DRP does not clash with any existing or proposed standards.

Its protocol is based on its Castanet Tuner technology and provides an enhancement for http that creates an efficient format for distributing data, software programs or content across the Net. Marimba was not prepared to comment on the legal action.